It's Never Wise to Cheer Assassinations, But....

... It's difficult to imagine too many tears shedding over the murder-by-car-bombing of Imad Mugniyah, Hezbollah's most brutal mastermind of terror, hijackings, hostage-taking, and the originator of the simultaneous, massive suicide truck-bomb concept: Mugniyah is credited (if credit is the right word) with planning the twin bombings of the barracks of U.S. Marines and French paratroopers in Beirut in October 1983. The Marines lost 241 men that morning, the French 57. In many places across France and the United States, it's safe to say, soldiers' families are right now probably nodding that nod of justice rendered.

Mugniyah had cut his teeth as one of Yasser Arafat's bodyguards and personal goons in the late 1970s. after the two bombings and Hezbollah's coming out, he organized a nerve center in the southern suburbs of Beirut called "Ali's Center" where hundreds of Hezbollah volunteers documented and tracked the whereabouts of westerners living in Lebanon.

Mugniyah then set a conveyor belt of terror in motion, taking some of those westerners hostage (like Terry Anderson, the Associated Press correspondent who'd be held longer than any other hostage, for seven years) murdering others (like Malcolm Kerr, president of the American University in Beirut, where Mugniyah had studied) and, it's believed, personally torturing some (like William Buckley, who was CIA station chief in Beirut and had fallen for one of his agents, who turned out to be the Hezbollah double-agent who set up his kidnapping).

Who killed Mugniyah, who'd been in hiding for a decade, under the protection of Syria and Iran? No one is taking responsibility. But where the assassination took place says plenty. Damascus isn't known as the sort of place where foreigners can cherry-pick bombing targets and locations. Israelis have pulled off a couple of raids, but Hezbollah's threats-and-wrath routine aside, this has Syria's signature all over it: Is Syria currying favor with the United States? Distancing itself from Iran? Sending a message to Hezbollah in Lebanon? As always, Syria, which relishes its role as the Mideast's rope-a-dope strategist, is an all-of-the-above sort of schemer.

The Story on Hezbollah:

• Imad Mugniyah: Profile of a Hezbollah Terrorist
• Hezbollah's and Mugniyah's Coming Out: The 1983 Bombing of the U.S. Barracks in Beirut
• The 2006 Hezbollah-Israel War